Oklahoma State football has new Aussie punter with big personality in Lachie Pozzobon
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STILLWATER — Around four or five years ago, Lachie Pozzobon was scrolling through Instagram when he noticed an ad about punting.
In American football.
The Aussie was quite intrigued.
The ad was for Prokick, the punting and kicking academy in Australia. So, Pozzobon went to meet with founder Nathan Chapman.
“That’s when I really figured out what American football was,” said Pozzobon, admitting he had never seen a game until then.
That’s when the wild journey truly began too. From Australia to Stephen F. Austin to Oklahoma State, to be exact.
With more than a week until Oklahoma State football’s season opener at Tulsa, the Cowboys unveiled their latest Australian punter Tuesday. Pozzobon is a 23-year-old, long-haired, mustache-toting Aussie full of personality.
And a valuable weapon for the Cowboys.
“Pozz has been phenomenal,” OSU first-year coach Eric Morris said. “As good of a camp as a punter I've been around. Really good spirals, really good drop punts. I think we can throw an arsenal of different varieties of punts at people.”
The Cowboys are no strangers to Aussie punters.
Tom Hutton was a program treasure, an older player who often befuddled punt returners with his various methods of kicking. Hudson Kaak was a social media darling who later split time at the position.
Now, Pozzobon is the latest capable of unleashing a variety of kicks, no matter if he’s running right or left with the football.
“That's honestly, that's Australian football, 'cause, yeah, it's not so much just walking in there off a couple of steps,” Pozzobon said. ”You might have three steps, and then you have to punt the ball, or you might have to run out to the right, and then kick it left, so, sort of, yeah, that's what I sort of developed that for.”
Morris said he’s been impressed with Pozzobon in nearly every situation since he arrived this spring. And he loves the versatility he brings the Cowboys’ special teams.
“So there's some crazy ones that we're gonna pull out at some point,” Morris said.
Battle for Oklahoma State right tackle taking shape
Possibly the last position battle on the offensive line will continue into game week.
Both Ashton Lepo and Shaun Torgeson are vying for the right tackle position, Morris said. And there is a surprise frontrunner at this point.
“If we had to play tomorrow, it would probably be Torgeson right now,” Morris said. “Just one of those cool stories. Comes in here and we didn’t expect much, you know. One of the last guys we took out of the portal.
“He’s a guy we kind of noticed in the weight room and his times in the GPS stuff over the course of the summer. Pound-for-pound as strong as anybody on our team. Super-athletic at 300 pounds. Smart, processes information really fast. I can see him playing a big role for us over the next three years here.”
Torgeson, a 6-foot-4, 302-pound Portland State transfer, even earned a mention in The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman’s freak list after he bench pressed more than 500 pounds and broad-jumped more than 9 feet.
Torgeson started all 12 games a year ago as a redshirt freshman at Portland State.
For his part, he’s playing it cool about the competition.
“I'm just playing my game, working hard, keeping my head down,” he said. “I feel if I go hard enough and earn it, then that's where I belong.”
OSU’s offensive line appears to be set elsewhere with Jacob Sexton (LT), Joseph Hanson (LG), Tyler Mercer (C) and Johnny Dickson III (RG).
Walton joining OSU is full-circle moment
In high school, Billy Walton III was committed to OSU. Then, he flipped to Texas.
A few years later, the 6-foot-3, 253-pound defensive end is finally home in Stillwater, via a journey from Texas to SMU to the Pokes.
“Things happen of course,” Walton said, “but it doesn’t matter no more because now I’m here.”
Walton said his cousins are former OSU defensive back stars A.J. Green and Jabbar Muhammad. They talked glowingly of the program and encouraged him to realize OSU was the best fit in the transfer portal.
But it also helped that OSU brought back defensive line coach Greg Richmond. He was the coach recruiting Walton in high school. He tried to land him in the transfer portal multiple times since.
“There were other schools but I wanted to go with G-Rich,” Walton said. “I feel like if he still wants to talk to me after all these years, all these letdowns … this has gotta be meant to be.”
Morris said Walton can play either edge position.
“And the one thing I've probably been the most surprised about Billy is his value on special teams right now,” Morris said. “He's a guy that you'll see run out there and play a couple different positions in special teams as a starter for us right now.”
Eric Morris' thoughts on pro players returning to college
On a day multiple conferences said they would consider adding rules to prevent pro players from returning to the collegiate level, Morris gave his thoughts on the issue.
“Yeah, I think it's just one of those things, like, what are we doing right now?” he said. “It's just one more thing we're putting on the list, and that quite frankly, we don't have time to deal with and figure out what the rules are and what's going on.
“At some point, I think there's got to be some integrity in this game. There has been forever, that goes along with sports in general and playing these, and we've taught this from the youth sports up. If a guy's competing for a professional job right now in this sport, he should have left college in the back mirror at that point.”
OSU at Tulsa
KICKOFF: 2:45 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 5 at T.A. Chapman Stadium in Tulsa (ESPNU)
Jacob Unruh is the deputy sports editor for The Oklahoman. Have a story idea for Jacob? He can be reached at junruh@oklahoman.com or on X/Twitter at @jacobunruh. Support Jacob's work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today at subscribe.oklahoman.com.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma State football has new Aussie punter with big personality in Lachie Pozzobon
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